"Marjory!" interrupted Dr. Kennedy, coming forward, "little Paul Duncan has just come round from the Lodge with a message that his grannie wants to see you. We might go round that way; it is getting late as it is."
"There's no hurry," put in Paul. "I will tell them to give the boy a piece, and he can wait till Miss Carmichael has finished giving me absolution."
"That is the wrong way about, surely?" she said.
"It is the usual way between a man and a woman," replied Paul, "and will be to the end of the chapter, I'm afraid."
Half an hour afterwards Mrs. Vane, who had come out into the hall with some parting instructions to Marjory, stood looking down with the others at little Paul Duncan, who, weary of waiting, had cuddled himself round on the doorstep and fallen into the heavy sleep of childhood. "He looks very delicate," said Violet, kindly stooping over him as he lay with one hand tucked into the back of his neck in rather an unusual posture; and then suddenly she looked up at the big Paul, for the trick had taken her back to the old days when she had watched his sleep with jealous care, lest her patient should be disturbed; and how often had she not wondered why he chose so uncomfortable a position?
Impossible! and yet there was a likeness. The name, too, and his evident dislike to the mention of the boy's mother! It must mean something--what? The thought left her pale, so that Paul, turning back with her when those two had gone, noticed it, telling her that she was overworking herself.
"Of course I am overworking," she retorted, with a strange mixture of self-pity, blame, and fierce resentment. "I always do. Is it my fault if I do things quicker than other people? Is it my fault if I see things more clearly? You think I am always managing, managing; and so I am. How can I help it when, everything keeps coming into my mind, and no one thinks or cares?"
"My dear Violet! You have been overworking, indeed. You must take it easier, or we shall be having you laid up----"
"And then what would Paul Macleod do?" she went on, with a reckless laugh. "No! I won't make myself so disagreeable as all that--if I can help it, Paul; but how can one help being disagreeable at times when one is wise--wise and old? Oh, Paul, how old I am!"
"I don't see it," he answered, with an amused smile.